


what follows us in the dark

by Alecto



Series: Fictober 2019 [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Amnesia, Fictober 2019, M/M, Magic and Science, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, Presumed Dead, Psychic Bond, Saving the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 17:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alecto/pseuds/Alecto
Summary: He had no memories; only the Cube to guide him forward. A terribly broken world waited at the other end. And he might be the one responsible for breaking it.Now he had no Cube; only Jounouchi as an unwilling partner to scour the wasteland for a means to save those that remained.
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler & Kaiba Seto, Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Series: Fictober 2019 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529003
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	what follows us in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 2 prompt: “Just follow me, I know the area.” x Inktober Day 2 prompt: "mindless"  
Fictober Day 5 prompt: “Yes, I’m aware. Your point?”  
Fictober Day 14 prompt: “I can’t come back.”
> 
> Inspired by DSOD world coming to Duel Links. DSOD!Kaiba has no chills.

Every inhale caked his lungs in dust and clogged his nostrils with the scent of decay. Darkness enveloped him, thick as miasma and suffocating as smog. His only light source originated from the strange cube he found clutched to his chest upon waking. It shone with soft golden light, highlighting the geometric patterns embossed on its translucent surface. Its luminescence bled heat, warming his body where his ripped clothing had failed.

He walked with no sense of time. A minute or an eternity could have passed since he first awoke. 

He kept moving forward. Nothing waited behind him.

Eventually, the Cube dimmed without going completely dark. By then, he didn’t need to rely on its light alone to find his way. Black bled out of his surroundings, transforming into the dreary gray of a clustered concrete jungle. The deserted streets stretched on for as far as he could see, littered with abandoned cars and storefronts. To his relief, he understood the local language and could read a nearby sign: _Domino City Bank_. Giant, dark clouds crowded the sky and made it impossible to tell if it was day or night. 

Silence pressed in. His ears rang from the stillness. No matter how hard he strained his hearing, he heard nothing. 

No birds. No insects. No people. 

The city was as empty as his mind was of memories. 

He paused near a vehicle with intact widows to study his reflection in the glass. A sharp-angled face with striking blue eyes, all too feverishly bright in their luster and shine, stared back. His complexion was almost ashen gray as the concrete cemetery enveloping him. His mussed and sweaty brown hair clung to his forehead and the nape of his neck. He guessed he was anywhere between his late teens to his early twenties. 

His outerwear was in tatters. Without releasing the Cube, he shed a once majestic long-coat, now reduced to rags. The leather hit the asphalt with a sharp thwack that resonated off the surrounding concrete with the force of a gunshot. His ears still rang from the sound and he almost missed glass crunching behind him.

In one smooth movement, he grabbed a discarded piece of rebar off the ground, wielding it like a sword and shifting into a guard position as he spun to face the intruder. So it appeared he was trained in self-defense or knew how to fence before he forgot who he was...

The man, the first living person he’d seen in what seemed like a lifetime, froze in his tracks. This blond-haired, brown-eyed man appeared to be his age. He wore clothing covered in mismatched patches that suggested they had been repeatedly mended and carried a heavy-looking pack on his back. Slowly, the man lowered his arm and the bat he brandished, muscles going as slack as his dropped jaw.

“Fucking hell, is that really you?” the man asked. His voice was pleasant enough, despite his vulgarity and his unkempt appearance.

He didn’t drop his guard. “Who are you?”

The man's expression turned wary. It was almost a familiar sight. “C’mon, stop fucking around, Kaiba. It hasn’t been that many years. It’s me, Jounouchi.”

“Kaiba.” He rolled the syllables across the tongue, waiting for familiarity to strike like bell clappers. It never came. He even startled at the sound of his own voice, which was deep and gravelly from disuse. “Is that my name?”

Jounouchi’s amber gaze scanned him up and down, lingering briefly on the rebar he still wielded for protection before focusing on his other hand. His face blanched upon seeing the Cube. “God, when Mokuba said he picked up on a strange energy signature, I never imagined it’s that fucking thing.”

He lifted the Cube, noticing the strange eye symbol on one corner for the first time. Its glow intensified for a moment. Jounouchi flinched. 

A chorus of howls echoing through the streets, growing louder as the source drew closer.

“Shit,” Jounouchi cursed as he readjusted his grip on his weapon. “We gotta go.”

“What is that?” he asked. A part of him rebelled against being ordered around.

“You’re better off not seeing ‘em. Just follow me. I know the area.” Jounouchi approached, sure-footed but moved by urgency. When he remained rooted to the spot, Jounouchi rested a hand on the crook of his elbow and pleaded, “Please, Kaiba, I’ll explain more when we get somewhere safe.”

With a hesitant nod, he allowed Jounouchi to pull him into a nearby alley. The Cube only led him so far. He’d have to trust this Jounouchi to take him the rest of the way. 

He struggled to keep up with Jounouchi though, who ran faster than the heavy pack on his back suggested he could. Jounouchi gracefully weaved between the fallen debris and accumulated garbage piles. Despite his long legs, he huffed to catch his breath and tried not to gag on the stench of trash long past their expiration date. But he couldn’t stop. No matter how much his muscles ached and his lungs burned.

“I don't get it. This is supposed to be a safe zone. Why the hell are they getting this close?” Jounouchi glanced back. His worried eyes darted to the alley behind them, then to the Cube. They widened, his pupils dilating by the light cast by the Cube. “It’s getting brighter,” he said tightly.

Kaiba—it still felt strange to call himself by that name—turned the shining Cube over in hands. It was warm to his touch. “Maybe it’s a warning.”

The howling drew closer. He detected an electronic reverb under the chorus of its cries. Whatever made that noise couldn’t be natural though.

“Or it’s calling ‘em,” Jounouchi snapped. He looked like he wanted to slap the Cube away or abandon him altogether. 

He clutched the Cube tighter. “I won’t leave it.”

“Course not. God forbid you do anything that’s common sense.” 

Bitter poison dripped from the fang of Jounouchi’s words. Kaiba had no clue where they came from but they pierced him like a snakebite. Hackles raised, Kaiba clenched his fists. Jounouchi acted as if he knew him so well and hated him for it. Given his memory loss, Jounouchi might indeed know him better than himself. He’d only learned his supposed name several minutes ago. He narrowed his eyes, studying Jounouchi and wondering not for the first time if he was being deceived.

Oblivious to Kaiba’s suspicion, Jounouchi looked away and spun on his heels in search of something. “There!”—he pointed to a nearby fire escape—“We need to get to the roof.”

Jounouchi took a running jump and grabbed onto the end of the retracted ladder. Using his weight and gravity, he pulled the ladder down and scaled it before Kaiba could blink. 

“Hurry, Kaiba!” Jounouchi called from overhead.

Climbing the fire escape with only one hand posed minor difficulties but Kaiba managed. As soon as he was over the top, Jounouchi shoved him aside and retracted the ladder again. 

“Will that stop them?” Kaiba still didn’t know what “they” were, but he doubted something like a retracted ladder sufficed as deterrence.

“No,” Jounouchi said, halfway up the next floor. “But they’re not the only things I’m worried about. If someone sees you... Fuck, lemme do my job and keep ya alive, Kaiba.”

They scaled the rest of the fire escape in silence. The Cube grew ever and ever brighter until it was uncomfortably warm to touch. But something told him to hold fast and not let it go. The instinct was a cautionary command that slithered into his ear to nestle deep into the folds of his brain. All he knew was his life—their lives depended on it. 

“Stay there,” Jounouchi ordered and pointed to the center of the barren rooftop. 

He dropped his pack with a thunk, drew something from his coat pocket, and looped it around his earlobe. At first, Kaiba thought it might be a headset and Jounouchi was calling for help. But the device snapped to his temple like a magnet and Jounouchi winced when it lit. Kaiba drew closer to get a better look, but Jounouchi moved away first to arrange four palm-sized disks on the surrounding ground in a square formation. The device’s light turned red while the disks on the ground powered on. 

The Cube pulsed.

“Jounouchi—“ he yelped.

“Shut up! I need to concentrate!” Jounouchi snapped. Beads of sweat dripped down the side of his face. He kept his eyes fixed on the roof’s edge.

Up close, the howls screamed of something unholy. The hairs on the back of Kaiba’s neck rose on their end. There was a physical presence to the sound, striking dead center at his primitive hind-brain. Darkness plumed over the roof, writhing like a landed mutant octopus with too many limbs and mouths. It extended a tendril, blacker than the darkest nights, toward them. Its advance was blocked by an electric blue force field. 

Jounouchi gasped. His eyes were squeezed shut. Pain marred his haggard features, and blood welled from the cut on his lip where he bit himself.

The black mass reared up on unseen hind legs and slammed bodily into the shield. Though it didn‘t have any eyes, Kaiba could feel its covetous intent directed at the Cube.

Jounouchi’s knees buckled, but he caught himself on his hands and knees. “Fuck, I can’t keep this up.”

Meanwhile, the darkness retreated. It prowled the perimeter of their protection like a predator sizing up its prey. It was biding its time. It knew as they did that Jounouchi couldn’t maintain the barrier forever.

“So we die here,” he observed calmly. 

They were trapped. There was nowhere else to run. He should care more. But he remembered no friends or family that he treasured. He didn’t know anyone who might even mourn him. He suspected Jounouchi wouldn’t mourn him. 

“No. You take that damn thing.” Jounouchi jerked his head at the Cube. “And make a run for it. You see the tall building to our right? The tallest one? Go there and find Mokuba. You’ll be safe there.”

In the distance, one skyscraper towered over its neighbors. Its sharp facade would have tapered to a knife’s point stabbing the overcast sky if not for the helipad that capped the glassy monolith. 

Jounouchi continued, “Tell Shizuka I’m sorry.”

He snapped his head to the crouched man whose shoulders trembled under some unseen effort. “You’re telling me to leave you behind.”

Kaiba judged the building to be about three kilometers away. He might make it if he abandoned Jounouchi as requested... Why argue if Jounouchi wanted to sacrifice himself for his sake? He had no idea what the Kaiba Jounouchi supposedly knew might have done. But the him now? He balked at the notion.

The Cube beat in time with his heart. _It's yours to command_, a voice that aroused memories of dry desert winds and eternal sunlight whispered to him. He raised the blazing Cube and approached the invisible line the darkness couldn’t cross yet. 

Jounouchi surged to his feet and grabbed his shoulder. “Stop that! I think it wants the cube!”

“Yes, I’m aware. Your point?”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed! It’s not like I wanna die for the likes of you, Kaiba! But you and that fucking cube may be our last hope!” Jounouchi’s eyes were wide with desperation, a look that Kaiba immensely disliked.

_Banish it_, insisted the phantom voice. Kaiba wrenched his shoulder out of Jounouchi’s grip and threw his elbow back. His aim struck true. With a sickening crunch, the blow connected with Jounouchi’s nose. 

“Mothafucker!” Jounouchi howled and cupped his broken nose. He crumpled to the ground, taking down the force-field with him when his concentration broke.

The darkness answered with a triumphant call that rattled every bone in Kaiba’s body. It swarmed them—the empty void between stars and planets rising to swallow them whole. But Kaiba held a sun, brighter and hotter than a white dwarf, in his palm. Ignoring the heat searing his skin, he thrust the Cube into the heart of the darkness. It struck back and knocked him to the ground on top of Jounouchi. 

Jounouchi’s fingers, blood slick but still an icy relief against his feverish skin, grasped his wrist. He squeezed Kaiba’s wrist, trying to force him to drop the Cube.

The Cube went supernova. Kaiba and the darkness screamed in unison. When his vision returned, he stared at the gray sky overhead. His hand was empty. But he also no longer felt the darkness’ ravenous presence. 

Somewhere to his right, Jounouchi groaned. He’d survived too.

Pain and fatigue dragged his consciousness under. He let them sweep him away.

-x-x-x-

The light beckoned. It was a cold and distant star reaching for him through light-years of space. He knew it well once upon a time, but its gravity was now too weak to draw him into orbit. 

_Come back_, it sang in a chorus. Then it split. One call became many, spread across an invisible spectrum. 

_It’s really him. _

_Brother, please, wake up. _

_I can’t believe he’s here after all this time. _

Not one lone star then, but a cluster of them desperate to return him to their fold. Did they cast him out? Or did he discard them first? 

“I can’t come back,” he said, not knowing if his words would ever reach them. 

_Wake up, you asshole._ _You owe everyone an explanation._

Something jolted through him. The command tugged him through the empty void of cosmos. It simultaneously repulsed and enticed him. No, he didn’t want that. He didn’t want whoever summoned him at the other end.

“Cowardice doesn’t suit you, Kaiba,” boomed a different voice from above, from behind, from all around.

Kaiba. His name. The darkness had almost swallowed it along with everything else. This disembodied voice wasn’t the first to name him. Someone else, Jounouchi, had filled that empty well first. But this new voice was familiar in a way Jounouchi wasn't. It boomed with the weight of ages and the promise of power he couldn’t resist.

“Who said that?” he demanded.

A hot, arid wind buffeted his back and hurtled him like dust motes into the beckoning lights. 

-x-x-x-

Everything hurt when he cracked open his eyes. A faint shadow stretched across the metallic ceiling overhead. The smell of antiseptic swamped him, burrowing into his nostrils and clawing down his parched throat. He wanted to gag. He wanted to throw up. 

Slowly, he propped himself up to a sitting position. His limbs shook from exertion. Sweat drenched his turtleneck’s collar, while every muscle in his body screamed in pain. He chanced a look at his surroundings and found rows of empty cots. Several medical machines were shoved into one corner of the room. Not even the sterility could wipe out the stench of death and illness that clung to every surface.

“He lives,” someone remarked dryly from the sideline. 

He waited for his head to stop spinning before turning to the speaker. Jounouchi, exhausted and stone-faced, closed his book and set it on the floor. He sat back up in his uncomfortable-looking folding chair and stared with narrowed eyes. His nose had swollen to an almost comedic size, but his bruised and dark-rimmed eyes were devoid of humor. 

“Where?” Kaiba croaked. 

“KaibaCorp. I had dragged your sorry ass here after your stupid stunt knocked you out. You’ve been out for four days.”

KaibaCorp? His head pounded as he grasped for memories that weren’t there. “What happened?”

Jounouchi’s lips thinned. The muscled cord of his neck twitched. “You nearly killed us both.”

His mind churned for a few seconds before he remembered. The inky darkness that chased them. Jounouchi struggling under the strain of maintaining their protective shield. Kaiba thrusting the miniature sun he nurtured into the gaping void’s maw. 

He looked around frantically. “The Cube. Where’s the Cube?!” 

“It’s gone.”

Kaiba’s innards froze over. Gone? Impossible. He glared daggers at the other man. “You’re lying. Give it back!”

A flip switched in Jounouchi as he lurched out of his seat and struck. Even though Kaiba saw the attack telegraphed from miles away, he couldn’t muster enough strength to defend himself. His back hit the cot with a bang and knocked the air from his lungs. Dark spots danced across his vision and he nearly blacked out again. 

The metal frame groaned under their combined weight. Their ragged breaths underlaid the infirmary’s electronic buzz. Jounouchi loomed over him like a wraith, using his knees and elbow to pin him. His vice grip skated perilously close to cutting off Kaiba’s air supply while painting fresh bruises along his clavicle. The scorn Kaiba sensed lurking beneath the surface boiled over in fury and hate.

“Kaiba, you selfish mothafucker. Even now, all you care about is that fucking cube. Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you destroyed enough lives? I shoulda left you for dead.” Jounouchi spat.

“You always talk a big game, deadbeat. Kill me yourself if you dare.” The insult rolled off his tongue, smooth as silk. “Allow me to help you.”

Kaiba reached up to rearrange Jounouchi’s hands across his throat. But as soon as his fingers grazed Jounouchi’s wrist, electricity jolted through their bodies. He recognized the power and heat. He knew it deep in his gut.

Jounouchi sprang back with a yelp, cradling his wrist to his chest. “Whadda fuck?”

A light flared in Kaiba’s chest, then died. His hand still burned. The pain centered on the odd eye symbol, the same one he’d seen on the Cube and somewhere else he couldn’t pinpoint, now branded into his palm. His gaze drifted from his new mark to the geometric lines and dots tattooed across the back of Jounouchi’s hand. They glowed shock white against his darker complexion. 

Something sang between them. Like magnets of the opposite poles yearning to bridge the gap. It begged to be complete and whole again.

Jounouchi must have felt it too. His revulsion hit Kaiba as sharp as a slap across his face.

“What did you do?” he demanded, face now white as a sheet. 

The answer came to him easily, even easier than breathing. “The Cube isn’t gone. It’s inside us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leaving this open for now, because I'm terribly tempted to write more of their hateship.


End file.
